


Virtuoso

by FreckledSaint



Series: Personal Hans Week [1]
Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Absolutely no abused! Hans here folks, Childhood, Family, Fluff, Gen, Jane Austen-y vibes, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreckledSaint/pseuds/FreckledSaint
Summary: You would have had to search far and wide for a child as lucky as Johannes Westergaard. His parents, Erik and Kristina Westergaard, were wealthy and comfortable and had years of experience under their belt by the time of birth. Neither of them died after welcoming their son into the world – as if often the case in fairy tales – and both loved him dearly. Once the midwives proclaimed mother and child healthy, the happy couple set out a plan on how to educate their baby properly.
Relationships: King of the Southern Isles/Queen of the Southern Isles (Disney)
Series: Personal Hans Week [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838899
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Virtuoso

**Author's Note:**

> My friend Tomorobo-illust and I came up with a bunch of prompts to celebrate Hans this week and the first prompt is 'Virtuoso'!

You would have had to search far and wide for a child as lucky as Johannes Westergaard. His parents, Erik and Kristina Westergaard, were wealthy and comfortable and had years of experience under their belt by the time of birth. Neither of them died after welcoming their son into the world – as is often the case in fairy tales – and both loved him dearly. Once the midwives proclaimed mother and child healthy, the happy couple set out a plan on how to educate their baby properly.

Most other mamas and papas worry when they are delivered of a child. It is, after all, a monumental responsibility and blood legacies are nothing to be trifled with. People fear of disappointing their child, not living up to the standards of their own parents, or they are simply terrified of accidentally killing their baby.

These fears had long since died in the hearts of the Westergaards. Raising twelve sons filled the pair with a sense of hard-earned confidence; they were sure that their thirteenth son would not, at the very least, perish of neglect. 

If anything, the primary concern of Lord and Lady Westergaard was not the infant mortality rate – fret not, dear reader; they worried themselves sick over this in their leisurely hours – but the quality of their progeny. Husband and wife were both accomplished individuals in their own right and it was only natural that they should wish for their offspring to be as equally (if not more) accomplished and refined as their parents.

No sooner had little Johannes – whose name was swiftly shortened to Hans – crawled out of his cradle than he was taught all the skills and principles needed in good society. Nature had luckily endowed the boy with a natural desire to please and be pleased, which made him a model student. Hans learned everything his parents wanted him to learn: languages, arithmetic, geography, history, rhetoric, religion, etc.

I have no wish to give the impression that the character of our hero started and ended in academia. That, in reality, was far from the truth. Little Hans somehow inherited the combined sum of his parents’ stubbornness and was a real terror when he felt like it. He refused to submit entirely to senior will. Accusations of refusing to count to ten in French and calling his brother’s interest in politics stupid were thrown around the house on a weekly basis. Notwithstanding these childish offenses, the first and the strongest display of dissent was displayed at the mature age of four and a half.

Both Erik and Kristina had musical bones in them. The latter, like every proper lady, played the piano, but what stood out was that she did celebrate her marriage by giving it up; the former, to his great credit, eagerly learned the art of harps and lyres from his own mother and kept her songs alive after her passing.

For all their agreeing that every well-bred child – talented or not – must learn to play or sing, they could not for the life of them settle on which instrument to give to their son.

Personal attachments aside, Lady Westergaard righteously argued that the pianoforte had major advantages over other instruments: it possessed the widest range of pitches (this setting the foundation for future musical pursuits), it was present in many a house and will effortlessly establish her boy in society, and it was easier to come by than the various harps lying around their home.

Meanwhile Lord Westergaard spoke of the great skalds of old and how wonderful it would be if their little babe learned how to sing and compose as if he was one of the great last skalds. And another pleasant bonus of harps and lyres, he remarked, was that it will forge a bond with his extended paternal family.

The pair debated and bickered and argued until their strengths left them. Spread out as they were on the drawing room sofa and floor, little Hans merrily sat on his father’s belly and asked, no, _demanded_ a violin.

Erik Westergaard furrowed his brows and saw that his wife did the same. A violin? That was unexpected. Hans recently took to following his brother Albert, a guitarist, and they entertained the idea of him learning the same instrument. The request for a violin was a surprise. But what were the origins of the surprise?

It was, quite literally, the result of his being taken to the riverfront that very morning.

Little children are in constant want and need of attention. The reader, whoever they may be, will know this to be a universal truth. What the reader may NOT know is that the head and the neck of large families must rely on their elder children to care for the younger. And since that very morning Lord Westergaard was in the city hall for business and his lady called on the local vicar, our hero was promptly given to his older brother.

Josef, the abovementioned brother, was the third-born son and fourteen years Hans’ senior. He was a tall, gentleman-like man whose passions were not very gentlemanly. The landed gentry tended to have a taste for dinner parties, horse-riding, hunting, and idling away their time with frivolous activities. Of course, Josef participated in everything – riding horses and hunting in the woods were a favorite pastime – but his heart lay in shipbuilding.

Upon being charged with looking after his youngest brother, Josef made no changes to his schedule. He instead lifted his brother into his arms and brought him along to the riverfront.

While Josef carved mermaids and pirates on the side of his boat, Hans ran after pigeons and away from seagulls. Occasionally – when there were no pigeons in sight – he wrapped his arms around Josef’s neck, pressed his face to his, and made up stories for the people carved on the boat.

Hans was telling his brother how _that_ short-haired mermaid wept magical tears which saved the life of _this_ particular pirate when he saw a young musician further up the riverfront. The musician threw a scruffy hat onto the ground; then he opened a leathery case and picked up a battered violin.

“Ah!” exclaimed Josef as he set his tools aside in favor of hugging his brother. “He returned.”

“From where? I never saw him.”

Josef smiled. “That is because you were not even a month old when he left. That fellow used to perform at the riverfront before seeking his fortune elsewhere.” In addition to enlightening Hans on this travelling musician, Josef reached into his pocket and searched for coins. A satisfied grin split his face at examining his wealth, and he clothed his brother’s little hand with a bright piece of pennig. “Go. Give it to that man.”

A small exclamation escaped Hans. Though I am not in the position of describing what this little human felt at this, the reader will allow me to humor a few possibilities – it is what historians such as myself tend to do.

Hans Westergaard was still a very small boy. He was a very small boy who believed in trolls and ghosts, creatures significantly bigger than him. The musician, with his being a violinist by the river, must have reminded this tiny child of the fearsome and mischievous nøkke; and the last thing he wanted was to be drowned by the fae.

Another brother – definitely Klaus or perhaps Henrik – would have accompanied him to the musician. Jules, however, wished to nurture independence; God knows it is difficult to develop when one has a dozen older siblings. He staunchly refused to go with his brother, though he did smile warmly and instructed the boy to cry out if he felt in danger.

The boy clutched the coin in his hand and slowly turned around. His gait was slow, and every additional meter that separated him from Josef warranted a quick glance over the shoulder. Erik Westergaard had done a stellar job of instilling a fear in his son of fiends and evil spirits, whose prey were those at the rear of the party. In many of the stories that Hans had heard in his four years, it was not unusual for the hero to turn back and see that their friend had disappeared into the mist.

It was this fear of losing his brother that had the boy constantly turning back. Josef smiled at him each time, and the violinist observed the gentleboy with great pleasure.

Eventually, Hans arrived and dropped the coin into the hat. The violinist grinned as he paused his music, bowed low, and thanked him profusely for the patronage. There was a natural archness in the man’s manners that caught Hans’ attention, and he gasped when he was addressed with – “I have been very rude, master, in not attending you and your brother over there; it has been a while since I saw Master Josef, and I do not think I’ve the honor of meeting you earlier! You must be Mistress Kristina and Master Erik’s youngest! Would you like me to show you how to correctly hold a violin?”

Hans was alarmed. Who on earth were Kristina and Erik? His parents were called ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’. His eyes darted from the musician to his brother, who nodded and gestured at him to talk.

“You do not have to trouble yourself, sir.”

“It is not trouble at all; I assure you!” He held out the bow towards him and raised his brows. “How old are you, young master?”

“Four, sir,” said Hans, raising five fingers.

“Are you, now!” replied the musician, trying not to laugh.

A few compliments here and words of encouragements there were enough to make Hans laugh. He decided that he liked the scruffy musician. The man addressed his little student with easy civility, recommended many an opera singer and composer, and overall promoted the image of his craft so well that is permanently imprinted upon the young, impressionable, and sensitive Hans Westergaard.

It was shortly settled that the boy was to be taught the violin. His parents tried to persuade him but, seeing that it did nothing, relented. A new violin was bought within a sennight, and a teacher found a fortnight later.

There were to be four lessons a week, half of which shall be given at the Westergaards’ and the other at the teacher’s home. It ought to be added, for the benefit of the reader, that Lord Westergaard had not present at these negotiations. His wife carefully planned the meeting to make sure he was absent, lest he should urge for the tuition to take place entirely on his property. His wife correctly assumed that it would be good for a boy to go on long walks twice a week so long as the weather was mild, and refused to be barred by her husband’s anxiety.

Hans quickly grew fond of his teacher; his spirits were high whenever the music-master was expected to arrive and enjoyed his walks across the meadow, in one his holding mother’s own and in the other his dear violin.

Such was our hero at four and a half: a promising little gentleman. And he indeed fulfilled those promises! The fruits of his parents’ investment bathed in their rightly deserved glory as he grew into manhood. At two-and-twenty, Hans Westergaard knew his numbers and letters, the names and histories of every isle that made up his country, spoke with a silver tongue, and was always acceptable wherever he went. His mother never tired of hearing the neighbors say that her son need not spend a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it, and Hans often spent his eves dancing.

In fact, the only thing Hans did more than dancing was – to the great lament of his long-suffering brothers – singing and playing music. His violin rarely left his side, whether he was at home or with guests or in the distant corners of his father’s expansive estate. Musicality agreed with Hans and so did he with musicality.

The weight of violin against shoulder comforted him. Skies were roiling, heralding a rainstorm. Somewhere in the distance he could hear Josef bickering with Albert, and Father called for him to come home. But he was not ready to bid adieu to the river.

Hans took a deep breath, exhaled, and lifted the bow to the violin. The trees rustled, as if joining in the chorus, and the young man happily played a nocturne for them. When his father’s voice called louder, he bit into his smile and tried not to giggle.

No matter how many years had passed, it was obvious that Hans’ stubbornness and mischief stayed the same as it was whether he was four or two-and-twenty. My readers must remember that when a young man is to be a hero, the taste for the ridiculous and dramatic is a requirement; and that meant playing the violin despite the presence of a light drizzle and the approach of a rather miffed father.


End file.
